In the following essay, Fickert analyzes “Vor dem Gesetz,” part of Der Prozess.

With some notable exceptions (see below) critics analyzing Kafka's brief prose piece “Vor dem Gesetz” have been inclined to neglect its appearance as an independent work while they emphasize the key role the same text plays as a part of the novel Der Prozeß.1 Since Kafka obviously intended “Vor dem Gesetz” to have a unique and therefore significant place among the works he held to be publishable and never even contemplated seeing it in print as it had come into being, namely as a spoken passage written for a crucial scene in his (unfinished) manuscript, a close reading of the text which Kafka prepared for publication seems appropriate. The title attests to the legendary character of the tale, for...